The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hunting the Lions, by R.M. Ballantyne

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Title: Hunting the Lions

Author: R.M. Ballantyne

Release Date: June 7, 2007 [EBook #21739]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUNTING THE LIONS ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

HUNTING THE LIONS, BY R.M. BALLANTYNE.

CHAPTER ONE.

BEGINS TO UNFOLD THE TALE OF THE LIONS BY DESCRIBING THE LION OF THE
TALE.

We trust, good reader, that it will not cause you a feeling of
disappointment to be told that the name of our hero is Brown--Tom Brown.
It is important at the beginning of any matter that those concerned
should clearly understand their position, therefore we have thought fit,
even at the risk of throwing a wet blanket over you, to commence this
tale on one of the most romantic of subjects by stating--and now
repeating that our hero was a member of the large and (supposed to be)
unromantic family of "the Browns."

A word in passing about the romance of the family. Just because the
Brown family is large, it has some to be deemed unromantic. Every one
knows that two of the six green-grocers in the next street are Browns.
The fat sedate butcher round the corner is David Brown, and the milkman
is James Brown. The latter is a square-faced practical man, who is
looked up to as a species of oracle by all his friends. Half a dozen
drapers within a mile of you are named Brown, and all of them are shrewd
men of business, who have feathered their nests well, and stick to
business like burrs. You will certainly find that several of the
hardest-working clergymen, and one or more of the city missionaries, are
named Brown; and as to Doctor Browns, there is no end of them! But why
go further? The fact is patent to every unprejudiced person.

Now, instead of admitting that the commonness of the name of Brown
proves its owners to be unromantic, we hold that this is a distinct
evidence of the deep-seated romance of the family. In the first place,
it is probable that their multitudinosity is the result of romance,
which, as every one knows, has a tendency to cause men and women to fall
in love, and marry ear